Knowledge and Beliefs about Bulimia Nervosa and its Treatment: A Comparative Study of Three Disciplines

Poor Mental Health Literacy (MHL), i.e. knowledge and beliefs about bulimia nervosa (BN), among health professionals may contribute to low rates of recognition and less optimal management. The aim of this study was to investigate the BN-MHL of health professionals. A total of 534 professionals selected randomly from Internet based lists were surveyed with a MHL questionnaire regarding a fictional vignette of a woman with BN. One hundred and thirty-six dieticians, 68 psychologists and 97 counselors, total 56% (n = 301) responded. The majority of respondents indicated the woman in the vignette suffered from BN (49%) or an eating disorder (20%) and endorsed evidenced based approaches. On post hoc between group analyses there was a trend (p = .02) for dieticians and psychologists to be more likely than counselors to accurately identify the diagnosis of BN. Dieticians and psychologists were also more likely than counselors to endorse a psychologist as the most helpful treatment provider (p<.001) and to be more likely to endorse cognitive behavioral therapy as the most helpful treatment (p<.001). These results indicate a need for greater training and support for non specialist primary care health professionals.     

A Social Ecological Conceptual Framework for Understanding Adolescent Health Literacy in the Health Education Classroom

With the rising concern over chronic health conditions and their prevention and management, health literacy is emerging as an important public health issue. As with the development of other forms of literacy, the ability for students to be able to access, understand, evaluate and communicate health information is a skill best developed during their years of public schooling. Health education curricula offer one approach to develop health literacy, yet little is known about its influence on neither students nor their experiences within an educational context. In this article, we describe our experience applying a social ecological model to investigating the implementation of a health education curriculum in four high schools in British Columbia, Canada. We used the model to guide a conceptual understanding of health literacy, develop research questions, select data collection strategies, and interpret the findings. Reflections and recommendations for using the model are offered.     

Spanish developmental dyslexia: Prevalence, cognitive profile, and home literacy experiences

This study was designed to examine the prevalence, cognitive profile, and home literacy experiences in subtypes of Spanish developmental dyslexia. The subtyping procedure used comparison with chronological-age-matched and reading-level controls on reaction times and accuracy responses to high-frequency words and pseudowords. Using regression-based procedures, 8 phonological dyslexics and 16 surface dyslexics were identified from a sample of 35 dyslexic fourth graders by comparing them with chronological-age-matched controls on reaction times to high-frequency word and pseudoword reading. However, when the dyslexic subtypes were defined by reference to reading-level controls, 12 phonological dyslexics were defined but only 5 surface dyslexics were identified. Both dyslexic subtypes showed a deficit in phonological awareness, but children with surface dyslexia also showed a deficit in orthographical processing assessed by a homophone comprehension task. This deficit was associated with poor home literacy experiences, with the group of parents with children matched in reading age, in comparison with the group of parents with children with surface dyslexia, reporting more literacy home experiences.     

Kindergarten literacy assessment of English Only and English language learner students: An examination of the predictive validity of three phonemic awareness measures

The study assessed the ability of English phonemic awareness measures to predict kindergarten reading performance and determine factors that contributed to growth trajectories on those measures for English Only (EO) and English language learner (ELL) students. Using initial sound fluency (ISF), phoneme segmentation fluency (PSF), and a combined phoneme segmentation task (CPST), students' beginning of kindergarten scores were used to predict end-of-kindergarten Nonsense Word Fluency (NWF) and reading (WRMT-R/NU). Regression analyses revealed that ISF and CPST early in kindergarten predicted variance in NWF and WRMT-R/NU. PSF did not predict reading performance over ISF or CPST. While gender was a significant factor in the growth curves across the measures, results revealed no significant difference for EO and ELL students.     

Displacement as trauma and trauma as displacement in the experience of refugees

This paper investigates the relations between displacement, home, trauma and the self in the experience of refugees, which has become an issue of unexpected and far-reaching proportions in recent times. It questions to what extent and under what conditions displacement in the world may be traumatic and how trauma may be considered the effect of an inner displacement. Refugees’ lives are marked by forced migration that is related to a certain suffering due to the changes in their family, relational, social and cultural lives. The paper explores the extent to which these changes can represent a break so significant as to be traumatic. It outlines the way in which traumatic experiences can produce an inner displacement and reorganization of one’s mental life that leads to a focus on traumatic complexes. Under the most severe traumatic conditions, this can be understood as a displacement of the central axis of Self, in which the ego complex yields its position to other complexes, with a deep change in the organization and functioning of self. The experience of refugees highlights the way in which we live in a matrix of conscious and unconscious links between inner and outer worlds that need deeper and simultaneous consideration to understand their implications and mutual resonances for the psyche. Clinical cases of refugees will illustrate some aspects of these interconnections.     

Sense of home buffers threats to the self

We hypothesised that sense of home serves as a buffer against self‐threat. In three experiments, we induced sense of home (vs. control) and assessed its buffering function to threat. Sense of home augmented openness to stereotype threat information (Experiment 1), increased performance on a spatial rotation ability test after stereotype threat (Experiment 2), and reduced the desire for high‐status products following mortality salience (Experiment 3). This “proof of concept” research establishes the buffering potential of sense of home and raises theoretical and practical implications.     

家庭读写环境与儿童接受性词汇发展关系的元分析

家庭读写环境(home literacy environment, HLE)与儿童接受性词汇(receptive vocabulary)发展的关系一直备受关注,但HLE内涵不清、各指标效应值强度不明,以及近年来两者关系差别较大等问题极大地限制了人们对该领域的认识。本文运用元分析技术对近30年国内外84篇相关实证研究进行分析。结果显示：HLE与儿童接受性词汇发展为中等程度正相关(r=0.31)。针对年代、文化背景、儿童年龄以及测量方法的调节效应检验表明：HLE效应值随年代发展显著降低,但其核心指标亲子阅读频率的效应值基本稳定;评估HLE的问卷法和现场观察法效应值无差异,但评估亲子阅读频率的书目清单法效应值显著高于问卷法。未见文化背景和儿童年龄的显著调节作用,原因值得进一步探究。后续研究应完善HLE的概念框架,更关注社会经济及文化视角下的概念建构以及测量改进。     

Introduction to Special Services in the Schools

No abstract available for this article.